 Ease and blessings and all of this abundance, that's from him. And when he is testing you, that's from him. You can't just switch your heart or turn your heart on and off based on your circumstances. You got to take it all, right? And that's why the Prophet's wisdom taught us that in the beautiful hadith, right? How wondrous is the affair of the believer? Because in every circumstance, if you truly understood your deen properly, if you have a proper Aqida, you will see it's all really good for you. Alhamdulillah, ala kulli haa, no matter what you're going through. Even if you're physically, outwardly going through a lot of hardships, in the grand scheme of things, you are actually in immense blessing. And this is where again, that beautiful story of Ibn Al-Tailah is very powerful as a reminder for us because in our limited understanding, we sometimes perceive tests as only things that are difficult, right? But the story of Ibn Al-Tailah actually teaches us that no, every human being is being tested always. Right now, think of a person that you think hasn't made. Think of anybody that you think they're wealthy, they have beauty, they have lineage, they have all the things that people envy, right? Guaranteed they're tested. Why? Because even in blessings are tests, right? So the story of Ibn Al-Tailah is that he was burdened and he came to another teacher, Abu Sayyid al-Mursi, I forgot his first name, but he's another great sheikh. And so he asked him, he said, I am really burdened in dunya and I need guidance. And so he asked him, you know, like what's going on? And then he explained to him his situation. And so his sheikh taught him, he said, I'm going to teach you something. And if you really understand it, it'll free you of all your burdens. And he said, every human being is in one of four situations, a possibility or a mix of one of four. And then he goes on to, and he says, all of them are tests and each of them have a response, right? So the first is the obvious one, tribulation. That's when you're in hardship, like all the things we just talked about. That we understand as human beings, because you look at someone who's being tested, oh my God, they just lost someone, ya Allah, that's a test. And so what is the appropriate response, right? Why does Allah swt put some people through really difficult tribulations? It's because he is seeking from them what was modeled to us by Sayyidina Ayyub, right? And Sayyidina Yaqub, right? The Sabrun Jamil, the beautiful, perfect patience. Those are the tests of tribulation, is that you're going to go through really serious, severe hardships. But what Allah is seeking from you is can you hold your tongue, have beautiful patience, trust the process, trust that your Lord has your good in mind for you, endure the grief, the loss, you know, not feeling like, oh my God, their world's falling apart, enduring it, enduring it. That's Sabrun Jamil. That's the first one. Okay, then the second one is that you have Naama. It's the complete opposite. So now some people will think, well how is a person who is in utter blessing or complete abundance and blessing, how are they being tested? As they may know, how are they being tested? Excellent, absolutely. So their test is do you have gratitude? Allah SWT is seeking from you if you're in abundance. Like right now if you have khayr in your life, if your marriage is really great, your kids are healthy, you have health, you have financial security, you've just maybe traveled or you have plans to travel. There's all these good things happening for you, you've got a promotion at work. Your test, it's literally your test, it's not that you just get a free ride, is can you show the requisite gratitude or at least a portion of that? Can you show gratitude to Allah SWT for your abundance? And also what does gratitude look like practically speaking? It's not just sitting and saying Alhamdulillah because that's easy to do. Gratitude is actionable. Gratitude has to manifest in what we would say, paying it forward. You have to share your blessings. So if you have money, you better be giving more Sadaqah, more Zakah because you recognize Allah has given me so much. I have to now help and redistribute some of this to the less fortunate. If you have more knowledge, you can't sit home and just read books. You could do it, but what is the point of that other than just benefiting yourself? Allah gave you knowledge. He gave you the ability to teach. Go out and serve your community because there are people who need that. If you have anything, any skill set that you can share, don't hoard it for yourself because Allah gave it to you as a test of your generosity as well as your gratitude to Him but also your generosity of spirit. So that is your test. That's why many people, this point about the next one actually is really tied to that. They forget Allah in times of prosperity. How many people do we know who when things are going rough, times are rough, they're like Allah, Allah, Allah. But as soon as things are easy for them, they become forgetful. It's really scary how common that is. When you tie your practice of faith only with adversity, that's what we're talking about. There's a lack of consistency there, but there's people who suffer that. So again, that's a second test that he mentioned. Then he mentioned the test of obedience. So how are those, inshallah, who consider themselves Muslim, who are in a state of submission to Allah, how are we being tested? What's our test? Because this is a test. If you looked again at the world in these dichotomies, like, oh, those who are guided and those who are not guided, it would be obvious like, okay, if they're misguided, they're being tested, but it might not occur to you that people who are guided are also being tested. But there is a test there. What's the test? When the situation occurs, why do I have to do it? So I didn't follow the rules and regulations that I learned from Allah. This is what I needed to do. Absolutely. My God has taught me and my Prophet has taught me something. I should have done that. Absolutely. So maintaining the purity of your practice of faith, absolutely. Which is what we're talking about, being mindful, adhering to the sun. And not trying to rebrand your own version of Islam. That's definitely there. The other part of it is also not becoming self-righteous. Because this is, it comes from that, right? It's a form of arrogance. Arrogance can work in many ways. It can be like, oh, I'm better than you, but it can also be, I've got my, you know, I'll figure it out or I'm going to create my own path, right? And it can also be what many people, exactly that I'm always the right one and you start to look down on people. And this is the danger of guidance. If you, it's a blind spot, right? It's like, oh, I'm now wearing hijab. Oh, I went and I, I'm taking classes and I memorized Quran. So what's going on internally with you? Now, do you feel suddenly that you're superior to other people? When you go out into the world, do you look at people as, oh, those kafir, right? Those kafar and you're just like speaking about people like they're lower than you. They're the dirt of the earth and you're the God's gift to humanity. Like, what's going on internally? Because just because you're guided, just because maybe you're, you excel in your prayers, you fast in Ramadan, you're very righteous and pious, does not give you any edge over any other human being until you die, your record is not closed, right? And neither is theirs. And so the humility required with guidance is that you know guidance can be taken away at any minute from you and given to someone else that you may have looked down upon. So it's very dangerous to let self-righteousness and arrogance enter the heart because you're playing with your own station with God. So our, you know, test as Muslims is not to turn on our fellow Muslims, first of all, or our even fellow brothers and sisters in humanity with this arrogance where we think that we are more deserving, we are more entitled, we are somehow the chosen people and they are left behind out of that. That's a very serious danger. So it's a test though. So the test of course is again always checking your nuffs when you see someone doing something. And I remember again when I first came to Islam because we weren't taught properly. I was learning Islam from books and really figuring things out on my own. I was reading literally things into things that I had no understanding about. So this actually disease afflicted me. I would watch people pray and I would presume that, oh, they don't know what they're doing because they weren't doing certain things that I thought was the standard, right? So imagine subhanAllah, you know, there are people, unfortunately that's what they think. You know, they're a madhahib. We have four, you know, canonical schools of law that allow people to, there's going to be some variance in certain things. Now, if you're not taught that, right, but you're taught one version, then you think this is Islam, then you're going to look at other people, for example. I mean, the most obvious one is prayer, right? There are some people who pray with their arms down by their side. In the Maliki fiqh position, this is the position of Imam Malik, right? To have your arms on your side. If you don't know of Imam Malik's position, he's Sunni, you may look at a person doing that and presume, oh, they're Shia, and then if you have a Sunni Shia complex, you know, all of a sudden, you're thinking all these terrible things. Who are you, first of all, to think anything about another person praying to their Lord? Whether they're praying with, you know, with their arms down, or maybe they're clothing. And I remember, you know, many years ago, that was also a very common discussion point because sometimes, you know, subhanAllah, some people are coming to the faith, you know, they feel a turning of the heart. They might come in, they have nail polish on. They might come in with sweatshirts and their, you know, pants are really, really tight and their t-shirts are high. Why are you looking at them and, you know, in your mind? Or, what's even worse? By the way, it's riba to do this. It's riba if you and your friend or someone is sitting and you want to do an ishara, like, look at that person. You don't have to say a single thing, but it's all implied, right? If you do the whole, check that person over there and you're making a glance of judgment, that's riba, right? And it happens all the time. It'll happen here in the house of Allah on Juma, tomorrow. You'll have people who look at someone that they don't approve of the way that they're dressed or behaving and they'll make all these presumptions and judgments and even while they're doing an act of worship and you have to sit there and say, what's wrong with me? That I'm preoccupied with another person calling into question the sincerity of their faith. Who am I? I don't know what's in their hearts. Maybe they're, and this is why many of our scholars said, never look, meet people, right? Like, I think it was Imam Shafi that I never, he never met anybody, but that he presumed that they were better than him, right? Because the Wali Awliyev Allah are hidden and we don't know who they are. Again, so that's the third test, is that if you're a believer, you have to check your ego. So these are internal checks. So when you have those thoughts, you don't share them. It's shameful. What you should do is inwardly go, astaghfirullah, may Allah forgive me for that thought. Right? Follow up a wrong deed with the right one, the prophecy I said to him said, may Allah forgive me. And don't wallow. Don't sit there and feel like the worst person on the planet. We're human beings. We're going to have these intrusive, negative thoughts, which you do as you self-correct and you move on. And you catch yourself. And if you do that more and more, you don't think eventually you're going to stop and surely you'll stop because it gets tiresome to keep policing yourself, right? You're going to get tired of yourself. So you'll be like, okay, I'm done. I'm done looking at people. And this is where the hadith of the prophecy I said to him, right? Which is, which is Part of the beauty of a person's Islam is minding their own business. You will get to the point of, I got no, I'm not looking anywhere. I'm not looking to the right or to the left of me. And actually one of our teachers, Sheikh Mohammed Ali Aqibi, he told us that that's actually a really strong practice of fulfilling this hadith, is even if you were like walking down the side of the street and there was an accident, right? Unless, I mean, people needed help. But you know, the whole rubber-necker kind of phenomenon that we have now, where everybody wants to see what is going on, that if it didn't have anything to do with you and there's nothing you can benefit or nothing you can do to help mind your own business, why do you feel the need to know what's going on in the first place, right? Inquiring minds want to know. This is the fundamental issue of the human being is we're nosy, we're preoccupied, we're distracted. And the more we focus on other people, we absolve ourselves of our own diseases. And that's really at the root of it, right? Your nefs would rather you be distracted looking at other people and judging them than inwardly facing your own diseases. And this is where our job is like, you know, we reorient, right? So your heart strays, you start looking and judging, you reorient the focus back onto yourself. That's the state of the believer. So it's a test and it's a struggle. That's what Majahed the nefs is. It's like constant fighting, constant talking to yourself, constant internal checks, constant lip-biting. Oh, I shouldn't have said that. Astaghfirullah, ya'llah, forgive me. Constant apologies, right? If you're not apologizing often for your mistakes, you have an ego problem. Because it's not that you're not making mistakes. You just refuse to apologize. So what does that mean? That means that you refuse to set right when you are proven wrong, right? And that's a big, you know, reflection of the ego that you can't admit wrongdoing. So that's also part of the spiritual practice is to bring in humility, humble yourself, be willing to admit your mistakes, don't look at other people, don't bother yourself with other people, mind your own business. So this is the test, the third test. The fourth test is misguidance. When you have strayed and you're distant from Allah, you're in sinfulness. You're doing things you shouldn't be doing. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is testing you to see if you are going to pay more attention to every ayah, every hadith where he is literally calling you back to him, right? He is a Tawab. I mean how many verses, how many hadith, how many stories have been revealed that indicate to us that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la does not close the door of Tawbah. We are the only ones. We either open it or we don't, right? The door is always open. So are you going to succumb to the whispering of shaitan or to what people tell you your trash, your waste, your waste of space? There are people who are so heartless when they're angry with someone for whatever reason, they will use these types of words. This is a form of spiritual abuse, right? Like you're fighting with someone, you're so angry with them that you start to read their rap sheet to them. Oh, you're so disgusting, you've done this, this, and this, and this, and it's all to basically tell them you're worthless, even in the sight of God you're nothing. A human being will say that to another person to tear them to shreds to nothing, whereas Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la the one who is owed the obedience, the one who you have betrayed in the sinfulness has never said that. He actually says the opposite. Even if your sins accumulate to the sky or the foam of the ocean if you seek sincerely come back to me, return to me. I mean the man who killed 99, how many beautiful stories have we heard where Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is teaching us over and over again, don't close the door of Toba. Return. Right? Because Iblis will come in, you know, his station right? Ablaza Iblis despair. That's his station he wants to pull us away from Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. So he's not going to fill your mind with hope, he's going to fill your mind with disgust, with self-loathing and that's why we have a tragic problem of people falling into despair and then spiritually going in the opposite direction because they don't have hope. So those are the four states and they're all tests so you can't find a single human being right now on the planet that's not being tested because everybody falls under one of those four right? Or a combination you could be guided and in blessing, you could be guided and in tribulation you could be misguided and in blessing or misguided and in tribulation. You're in one of those four, a combination of those four and that means that it's an equal system right? Because everybody has their own tests and nobody can say their test is not as easy as mine and that's where we also have to check our nafs from falling into a victim mindset because if you victimize yourself and you start to think like oh woe is me, I have more problems than everybody else and I deserve this and I deserve that first of all it's an allegation against Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. You are literally accusing Allah of being unfair when you frame things that way right? If you've ever had the thought that I'm being tested more than I deserve, why me that's an inspiration from Iblis because he wants to turn your heart away from Allah but you also have to read into what you're actually saying which is I am accusing the most merciful of the merciful the most just of being unfair to me because I somehow deserve less problems and I'm comparing myself to this person and that person and I think well they are not tested and I am that's not fair who are you who are you accusing you're accusing the most just of being unfair so this is where again calling your sincerity into question the claims you make into question and the sign of a true a person who's really on the path is that they are consistent with Allah no matter what's going on they have ridah with Allah I lost something I'm going through problems Allahu Akbar I will pray my prayers just as I do when everything's going amazingly that's consistency so that's the fourth foundation the fifth foundation right and these are all the the five that he the sheikh that Sidi Ahmad Zarruq outlines for us as being the essential platform or foundation to build our faith upon the fifth one is is about being active right because the contentment is your reaction right that you are reacting to ease and hardship in a consistent way right the fifth one is turning to Allah so now you're actually the one who's doing this right so you are turning to Allah in prosperity and adversity so they're different in this way Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar we have the adai so we'll just wait Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar I bear witness that there is no god but Allah I bear witness that there is no god but Allah I bear witness that there is no god but Allah I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah to the prophet to the success So, the fifth and final foundation is turning to Allah in prosperity and adversity. This is where you actively know what to do. Whether things are going well for you or whether they're not, you are always turning to Allah. You don't go to, you know, the first line of defense basically in every situation is Allah. As soon as you have a worrying thought, you're concerned, you're freaking out, you're having a moment of anxiety, you're having a moment of fear, panic, or you're in a moment of joy and excitement. Your words should come through Allahu Akbar Alhamdulillah Subhanallah because you're exalting the one that deserves all praise, right? Or you're turning to the one who's the only one who can bring you relief. But in both situations, you have, you've calibrated yourself, you've calibrated your heart to know what to do, that it's always Allah as your first line. You can then pick up the phone and call your loved ones. You can then tell whoever or seek advice and use the means, the subab that he's given to you, but your first turning should be Allah, help me with this, right? And so it's an active thing, a practice that we do and it pairs like I said with the previous one in that the previous one is about the way that you react to things and this one is about your actions, right? So they're different and similar in the same way, right? That in both hardship and ease you have ridah, that's the way you're perceiving the tests or perceiving the blessings, you're receiving them in that way. And then in this final one, it's that you are actively turning. You know what to do in all situations. And so then he, you know, I'll just read this because inshallah prayer is coming in soon and I'll leave a few minutes for questions. But this paragraph here again, if you're reading along, he says, the realization of mindfulness of Allah is through scrupulousness and uprightness. So if you want that taqwa, right? The taqwa that is the first foundation, how you realize that, how it comes into being is that you are upright, you have scrupulousness, which means you're really, as our sister said, you're upholding the integrity of your actions, that you're actually following the rules. You're doing things according to how you're instructed to do them. You're not improvising, you're not trying to create your own set of rules in Islam. And unfortunately, again, we do have that problem where sometimes people think that, well, if my heart feels it, what's the problem with it? Well, if it doesn't align with sharia, then there is a problem because you're doing your own thing. It's not Islam at that point, right? If you're going to pray, you know, one prayer here and then abandon the others and you're thinking, oh, well, my heart is clean. You sure you can tell yourself that until you turn blue in the face, but you're not following sharia. That's it. It's that simple. So it's actualized through following the rules and being upright, right? And then the realization of adherence to the sunnah is through caution and excellent character. We cannot develop or the prophesied sunnah is really about obviously worshiping Allah, but it's also character development. So if you want to have the highest character and really be the best version of yourself, emulate him. It will come through just by taking his practice on, right? So a very simple example of that is if you're temperament, if your entire life, you have been more subdued and not very emotive, right? Let's say there are some people who were raised in a family environment or in a culture where they weren't very demonstrative in their affection. Maybe they're more, you know, their facial expressions are very limited, you know, to just being stone faced a lot of the time. If you want to develop and become a better version of yourself, you have to look at what's the practice of the prophesied sunnah. He always welcomed people so it will require you to step outside of what's normal for you and force yourself into a prophetic, you know, way of being. Which is even if this isn't comfortable for me because I wasn't raised this way, if he did it, I want what he did. And I'm gonna fight harder. So, you know, even if you think, oh, I look so foolish, I look so silly. Again, what do we say in the beginning? Stop caring about how you look to people. Do you think Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, knowing that it's harder for you? Because some people come from traumatic backgrounds. Some people come from real pain. I mean, my parents' generation, a lot of our parents' generation, if you ask them, they suffered a lot of things, right? So it's not easy to just suddenly become smiley. But for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, when you're in a gathering, and I'm not saying the whole time you have to sustain this fake smile and walk around like, you know, no, it's about just at least receiving people with warmth, right, with that feeling of I'm happy to see you. And the Prophet said to him, he was not excessive. So his laughter, as we know, was not audible, right? His laughter, so I'm not talking about suddenly becoming this exuberant, fake version of yourself. I'm saying to see where you're at and say, I want to at least push myself to try to emulate him. So that might look for some people like, you know, just a pleasant smile for other people might be an open mouth smile, something that just is more welcoming. But find the balance for you as a way of trying to emulate him. Because this was his sunnah. This is one of the things that almost every description of him, when you read is consistent, that he smiled at people. And it removes people. And we now know through research, right? There's mirror neurons that are activated as soon as a person smiles. It's this incredible science that now supports the power of smiling. And this is the sunnah of the Prophet, and he taught us how to spread peace between the hearts without conveying love. And love is usually expressed not always in words, but through warmth, through these gestures. So that's how, you know, we adhere to the sunnah, right? And then it goes on to say, the realization of indifference to others and acceptance or rejection is through patience and trust in Allah. That even if you're suddenly excluded from people, right? Don't worry. Allah could take all of, you know, your friends and replace them for you with better people, right? I mean, think of, like I said, our convert brothers and sisters. They are, to me, incredible. Some of them literally lost everybody. They lost their parents, their grandparents, their siblings. They've been cut off entirely from their whole tribe. But it was worth it because they've inherited the umma of the Prophet, so I said them. And of course, the replacement of whatever they lost is, you know, it's so great, so they don't feel the loss of it. But that's what patience and trust in Allah means, is that you don't let your emotions or that sense of, like, doom and gloom and loss overwhelm you. You just stay the course. You're in it for the right reasons. You're trying, you're doing it for the sake of Allah. He will give you topia, right? And then the realization of contentment is through acceptance of what one is given and turning over the management of one's affairs to Allah. So, you know, if you have a hard time, like with your circumstances, we have to remember that al-Waspah that is a distributor, right? He's, it's all portioned out. So to me, and this is where even if you study like the disease of the heart where they talk about envy, it's really important to reflect on these points, but it's already been divided. Your portion and my portion, it's already divided, right? So just think of like, you know, if you had, you know, I'm thinking of like, you know, if you stumbled upon wealth, but the numbers were already kind of predetermined, like everybody's gonna get this percentage, right? Or maybe there was a different distribution system, but it's kind of like the numbers were already worked out. So this is it, it's, there's no fighting this. It's done deal, right? Then everybody has to just kind of be content with their portion and not look at it like, you know, oh, this is unfair. No, because you have your, and the thing is if we're really being honest, all of us have advantages in some areas over others, and maybe we are disadvantaged in some areas. And that's to show you the incredible justice of God is that not everybody has everything. There's, there is this system at play. We might not be able to see all of it. We might not be able to understand the design or the way that it's all proportioned out, but we should trust the one who's doing the division as being just and fair. And if we deserved more, we would get it. And if we don't get something, maybe it's because in this life, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala is choosing not to give us more of something like wealth, right? There are many people who spend their entire day and night just dreaming of wealth and they have so much envy for people of wealth and they don't realize that if you really knew your Lord maybe your disease of wealth would be too much. And the perfect evidence of that is look at what happens to many people who stumble upon wealth, right? Like these lottery winners. There's been a few different articles written about some of them who have completely become like their own worst enemy. As soon as they came into money, it destroyed their life. So that could be the circumstance, right? That Allah's preventing greater harm for you. So He's not giving you this thing that you want so desperately because He knows it'll cause more harm for you. And if you had that trust, you would then just let go and say inshallah in the next life. Because this is not our permanent boat. We're going somewhere else. This is one leg of the journey and it's a significant leg in that it determines where we go, but it is not the part of the travel that you want to invest in, right? This is not, the investment is in the Akhira. So that's where again, being content with what He gives you and just leaving the rest to Allah's Father. And then the last point, the realization of turning back to Allah is through praise and gratitude in times of prosperity and taking refuge in Him through affliction. So this is it, you're being proactive. You know what to do. When things are going rough, you are turning to Allah. When things are going ease with ease and you don't ever feel safe, you know? Part of the formula that I think is effective in this dunya is don't ever get too comfortable. Do not ever get comfortable, because you'll get blindsided real quick by dunya. If you start coasting, you know, it's kind of like when you're on the freeway. I'm sure it's happened to all of us before. Sometimes whether you're driving late at night or you're driving on a road that's really nice and smooth, right? You know those beautiful drives where you're just like, oh, this is such a beautiful, easy scenic drive. And it's like, I'm just enjoying it. Everything feels so good. If you lose sight of the fact that at any minute the road could bend, right? Or at any minute the cop car could zoom right past you, it'll, you know, you'll completely lose yourself. So you have to be alert. And the dunya is a place that requires our alertness that things can happen very quickly. Things can suddenly change very quickly. But that doesn't mean it's the end and it doesn't mean it's your, you know, this is like you're being punished through this. It means that your test is that, you know, change or it's sudden change or whatever it is in your life that's happened. But inshallah, if you respond according again to the appropriate response, you'll get through it. So there's so much of this text still to come. And I really, really hope that inshallah, as we meet month after month, we will continue to expand the discussion. And I advise you all to please look over this PDF like beforehand and just kind of read through it because it's really powerful. And it gives, and the way that, again, the structure is that we start with the five foundations and then everything that comes after is the building blocks that will get us to these foundations. So he's starting with the destination in a way in mind. Like if you want to get to all five of these, then the rest of the document tells you how in great detail. So it's really structured beautifully. Alhamdulillah, Jazakumul Khidrin, I want to thank all of you again for attending and those of you who are streaming and watching on Instagram live, Jazakumul Khidrin. We're gonna be praying in a few minutes, but are there any questions here at least? Yes. Alhamdulillah, you're welcome. Barak Allah Fikir, washa'Allah. Masha'Allah. That's so sweet. Ya Allah. La ilaha illa Allah. Allahumma Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim. Allahumma Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahmani r-Rahim. Amin al-Ahsan al-Fatiha. Ya Allah, you know, it's interesting you mentioned this.